‘We were receiving fire from everywhere’

It was just before dawn in March 1945 on the smoking, stinking, moon-like island of death that was Iwo Jima. Nealy Adolph Sweat of Summerville was carefully peeking over the rim of the shell crater that was keeping him alive when a shot cracked out.

Nealy Sweat of Summerville fought in Tinian, Iwo Jima and Okinawa during World War II.
The State

Nealy Sweat brought back souvenirs from his experiences in World War II, including a saber from a Japanese officer and a rifle from a Japanese soldier who shot off his helmet.
The State

Sweat took advanced training at Camp Hale, Colo., learning to ski and climb with the 10th Mountain Division.

He was then placed in the 147th Infantry Regiment — an elite unit classified secret until 1957 — and trained on skis to battle the Italians in the Alps.

But the Italians had switched sides and become U.S. allies. So, in January 1944, the regiment was shipped to the south Pacific — “with all our winter clothes,” Sweat said — as unattached special forces serving Gen. Douglas MacArthur.

“Where he needed us, that’s where we went,” Sweat said.

After arriving at the Pacific staging area of New Caledonia, the regiment landed on Tinian island in July 1944 to help “mopping up” Japanese resistance. Tinian was in the Marianas Islands — part of the U.S. campaign to seize Pacific Ocean air bases from which to bomb Japan.

Sweat arrived on Tinian a private. He would leave a sergeant. He will not speak about what happened in between.

“There are some things I don’t talk about,” he said.

“WE GOT PINNED DOWN”

Iwo Jima was the second-to-last stop in the island campaign to Japan. Its airstrip was needed so the United States’ new B-29s bombers would have a place to land when hit over Japan.

“It was an emergency strip,” Sweat said. “A couple landed while we were fighting.”

The Japanese Imperial Army had entrenched an estimated 22,000 soldiers in bunkers, fortifications and caves throughout the island and its ponderous mountain Suribachi. The island was desolate, waterless and covered in a black, volcanic, powdery sand.

Few people know that the Army was on Iwo Jima with Marines. But the 147th was ordered to climb from landing craft with grappling hooks to scale a high ridge about ¾ mile from Suribachi. The mission was to fire on the enemy opposing the Marine landings on the beaches below.

“We did it. We climbed the ridge,” Sweat said. “But we got pinned down immediately and from all directions and couldn’t move. We were receiving fire from everywhere. Poor planning by somebody.”

They would fight non-stop for 31 days.

“We could hear the Japanese at night getting happy, drinking sake,” he said. “And we would know what was coming next.”

DIG, BURN OR BLOW THEM OUT

Sweat led the 50-man 4th Platoon, Company I. His men had two flame throwers, mortars and two bazookas. The rest of the men were armed with Browning Automatic Rifles, BARs, powerful automatic assault weapons.

Sweat was the only man with a smaller caliber, semi-automatic M-1 Garand rifle. As platoon leader, he would fire tracer bullets to direct the fire from the BARs.

The idea was for the BARs and mortars to protect the men with flame throwers and bazookas. They would in turn blast and burn the Japanese out of their caves.

“We had to dig them out or burn them out or blow them out,” Sweat said. “So the flame thrower is a wonderful weapon, especially with caves.”

The technique was to blow long streams of jellied gasoline into the lower entrances of caves, Sweat said, letting the draft carry it through the complex and incinerating everyone inside.